Alessandro said, “You must be so happy.”

Nodding slowly, Nicole picked up a fork and nudged the food that suddenly had lost its appeal.

Stephan was back in her life.

Chapter Eight

I couldn’t have planned this better.

Nicole might have his family fooled, but she was not as innocent as she pretended to be. He wasn’t quite sure how Nicole and Maddy had ended up in the same limo and he was grateful that Maddy hadn’t been alone, but that didn’t change what had clearly happened next. Nicole had used that event to infiltrate his family and give credibility to her claims of their engagement. She didn’t care if his family was hurt by her eventual departure. All she cared about was maintaining control of her father’s company, proof that she was every bit as greedy and unscrupulous as her brother.

Good, otherwise I would have felt guilty about using her.

Their fake engagement meant that they would be seeing a lot of each other over the next month or so. Oh, yes. The thought made him instantly hard. Sure, she threw insults at him and claimed to want nothing more than his help, but the heat in her eyes when she’d looked at him had given her secret away.

She wants this as much as I do.

Why not use this opportunity to finally get her out of his system? If he played this game right, he could soon walk away from two Corisis with the knowledge that they had both gotten exactly what they deserved.

Nicole wasn’t like other women he knew. No amount of flattery or gifts was going to get her to lower her defenses. Like overtaking a well-protected fortress, this was going to require some strategy.

Everyone had a weakness, a secret, some motivator they often weren’t even aware they had — something that unconsciously drove their daily decisions. You could get most people to do almost anything you wanted if you could discover what it was.

I must remember something useful.

Nicole liked her routines. From the conservative pants suits she wore everyday to the way she couldn’t concentrate unless her stapler was in its proper place on her desk, she was a creature of habit.

Like Dominic, she would probably act impulsively when she wasn’t in control of a situation. All he had to do was shake her up just a little and she’d fall into his bed.

And he knew just how to do it.

Already up and dressed in a gray pants suit, Nicole answered the intercom at her father’s house in the Hamptons. They hadn’t had regular staff in over a year, since her father hadn’t wanted anyone to know that his health was declining.

"DA Plant’s Moving and Storage."

"Who?"

"DA Plant’s Moving and Storage.”

Nicole turned on the driveway video surveillance camera. The man speaking into the intercom sure looked like a mover. The logo on his blue uniform matched the one on the side of the truck behind him.

"I'm sorry, you must have the wrong address."

"We were told you might say that, Miss Corisi. Your fiancé sent us."

"I'm sorry about the confusion, but he shouldn't have called you. I'm not going anywhere."

The man wiped his forehead with his sleeve. "He said you might say that, too. Did you want him to cancel his appointment with your lawyer?”

Service with a threat. How nice. "Well, I didn't know movers were so verbose."

"He paid us extra for the message.” The man sounded apologetic.

Oh, what the hell. The important thing was that Stephan had agreed to help her.

She pressed the button that opened the gates at the end of the long driveway.

Two movers hovered at the doorway as if not wanting to dirty the white marble floor, their wide eyes taking in her father’s less than subtle display of his wealth. If it wasn’t ancient or one of a kind, it wasn’t worth displaying. Nicole snapped, “Come on in. What else did my fiancé say?"

The two men entered slowly. One removed his hat as if the great hall deserved an act of respect. "He said that you don't have to take everything, just enough for now."

"What does that mean?" she asked, not hiding her annoyance.

"I have no idea, ma'am. We'll just pack whatever you'd like us to."

“He has no right!”

One of the men backed up at her tone and almost knocked over a 2,000 year old roman vase.

"Watch out," Nicole said automatically, "That was my father's -" and she stopped.

It was all her father's. Everything in this house was his because it had all been for show. He’d paid someone to decorate every room with only the rarest and most expensive items from around the world, never allowing the house to become a home. And that roman vase? She’d never touched it, because he’d never let her.

She picked it up and smashed it on the floor at her feet.

Shards of ceramic flew in all directions.

It felt good.

She walked over to the Cycladic Greek figurines on the mantel and smashed each one on the floor, along with a photo of her father shaking hands with the President of some foreign country—a picture that should have been of her winning one of her early dance recitals. However, those pictures had been discarded with the trash, not valuable enough to put on display.

"Are you ok?" one of movers asked.

"I'm fine!" Nicole caught herself just before she reached for another priceless figurine. The two men were openly gaping at her emotional display.

It’s an uncomfortable moment when you realize that there is a crazy person in the room and it’s you. Nicole smoothed her hands down the side of her jacket and collected herself.

"What would you like us to pack?" one of the men asked nervously.

She looked around. "Nothing. There is actually nothing here I want." And she walked out the front door.

Jeff, her driver, lowered the partition on the way to Stephan’s penthouse. He asked, "You really took nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Not even an overnight bag?"

"I told you, there was nothing there I wanted."

"You might want a toothbrush eventually." When she glared at him, he said, "Just saying."

His words sunk in. "I probably do want a toothbrush." She laughed, but not because it was funny, just because her life was completely out of control and she didn't have the faintest idea of how to put it all back together. She couldn't even make the smallest decision, like anticipating what she'd need at Stephan's. “I don’t know what to do,” she said out loud.

"Don't you have millions and millions of dollars?" Jeff asked.

Nicole shrugged. Her father had always kept her on a strict allowance. There had been rules to follow, and appearances to maintain. Money had never given Nicole the freedom so many people assumed it would.

Jeff continued, "Buy a new toothbrush. Buy a gold one. Buy whatever the hell you want."

He was way too personal, way out of line.

But he had a point.

Her father wasn't here to stop her. She might be fighting for control of the company, but she certainly had control of her own checkbook now. She could buy a lifetime supply of toothbrushes if she wanted.

There was just one problem.

"Where do you buy them, Jeff?"

"A toothbrush?" His surprise was not a compliment.

Instantly defensive, Nicole snapped, "I'm not an idiot. I know you buy them at a pharmacy or something. I've just never..."

"Never?"

It was mortifying to admit the truth. "The basics were always there. Our staff bought them. I didn't have to go shopping. Everything came to our house."

"That explains a lot."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Do you like what you're wearing?"

Nicole looked down at herself, "I never thought much about it. I've always dressed to..."

"Blend in?"

Nicole stiffened with anger. "I don't need you to judge me."

"I'm just telling you that I understand." Jeff didn’t seem the least bit put off by her snarl.

"I doubt very much that you know anything about me."

He met her eyes briefly in the rearview mirror. "I know that your father was a controlling and angry man. I know that your mother deserted your family—or died—or did both when you were thirteen. Your brother clashed with your father over her disappearance so he left you, too, and was in a not-so-private war with your father until the day he died."

"Ok, enough. So my private life is not very private. I get it. What’s your point?” Really, could this day get worse?

The sympathy in Jeff’s eyes only made Nicole cringe more.

He said, "You're not the only person to experience abuse or loss. You should talk to someone about it."

"Like a shrink? Or a nosey limo driver?"

He shrugged, "Either. Both. I just can't sit here and watch you fall apart without telling you that what you're going through is normal. You survived an abusive parent, now comes the hard part.” Nicole gave him no encouragement, but he didn’t seem to require any. “Finding out who you are without him.”

What if I’m no one?

"And I do that by buying my own toothbrush?"

"It's a start. Then we have to do something about your clothes. You look like a rich librarian.”

How rude! "Wow, you really know how to build a girl's ego up. Most drivers worry more about the road than their boss’s attire."

"What are you going to do? Fire me? You don't even pay that well."

"I don't?"

"No, you don't, and your father never did."

Just add that guilt to my tab.

"Then why does your father stay?"

"Because he likes you. He says you are like a flower in the middle of a thorn bush: not your fault you are there; and almost impossible to save."

Is that how people saw her? As a helpless victim? Someone who needed to be saved? No wonder she was alone. "I don't want to be that person anymore, Jeff," she said and realized how deeply she wanted to make that change.

"You're young, you're beautiful, you're rich. What’s stopping you?"

A huge weight lifted off her chest. Nothing was stopping her. Absolutely nothing. "So, where does one go shopping when they don't want to look like a librarian anymore?"

"With your credit limit, anywhere they want."

Exhausted and exhilarated all at the same time, Nicole dropped several bags down inside the door of Stephan's penthouse. She felt years younger in her new blue polk-dotted Oscar de la Renta dress. She was used to concealing what she had always considered boney shoulders, but she refused to hide anymore. As she'd entered the building, she'd caught a couple of men turning to give her a second look. Her heart skipped a beat and she wondered if Stephan would feel the same when he saw the new her.

She turned back to Jeff who was almost not visible beneath the packages he was laden with. She asked, "Do you believe in happy endings?”

“As in happily ever after?”

“I guess.”

“That’s not reality, Nicole. Life doesn’t stop when the book ends.”

“But some people find love and stay together their whole lives. A love like that’s possible, right?”